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Tahanie A. Aboushi, Esq. is a Palestinian-American civil rights attorney and partner at The Aboushi Law Firm in New York City with two of her siblings. She is the sister of Los Angeles Chargers offensive guard Oday Aboushi. Aboushi is a Democratic candidate for District Attorney in the 2021 Manhattan District Attorney Primary.

Early life
Tahanie Aboushi was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York after her parents immigrated from Palestine to the United States. She is one of ten children in her family. When she was 14 years old, her parents were arrested for conspiracy charges related to selling untaxed cigarettes at their grocery store in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Her mother was acquitted, but her father was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison. He was released in 2018.

Education
Aboushi received her Bachelor in Science in Legal Studies from St. Johns University and received her Doctor of Law in 2009 from Syracuse University College of Law. She participated in mock trial programs in school and won the Northeast Regional Thurgood Marshall Mock Trial competition in 2007.

Career
In 2010 Aboushi founded and became partner at The Aboushi Law Firm where she practices civil rights law with her sister Diane, her brother Aymen, and her sister-in-law Sawsan Zaky.

Aboushi’s experience as an attorney, a child of immigrants, and being Muslim led her to JFK Airport in Queens immediately following the announcement of President Donald Trump’s 2017 Executive Order 13769, otherwise known as the Muslim Ban, where she offered legal help to people who were affected by the executive order. New York State Senator Jesse Hamilton awarded Aboushi the Shirley Chisholm Women of Excellence Award for her extraordinary contributions to the community in this work.

Aboushi sued the NYPD for violations of religious rights when officers had forced women to remove their hijabs for mugshots in the presence of inmates and other officers and subsequently made those images public. Aboushi represented three women involved in separate cases claiming their religious rights were violated, and in 2018 the women received $60,000 each in the settlement with New York City.

In 2020, Aboushi represented a 21-year old woman who was hospitalized after being shoved to the ground by an NYPD officer during Black Lives Matter protests in Brooklyn. Video of the incident was captured by a Newsweek reporter and quickly became viral. Aboushi, the injured woman’s lawyer, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city, the officer, the officer’s supervisor who witnessed the incident, and the NYPD. The officer was suspended without pay and charged by the Kings County District Attorney Eric Gonzalez with misdemeanor assault and other offenses.

Manhattan District Attorney Race
Aboushi announced her campaign for New York County District Attorney in January 2020. Aboushi’s policies for District Attorney outline her plans that promise not to prosecute offenses that are resulting from poverty, mental illness, substance abuse, or sex work. If elected, Aboushi would be the woman, Muslim, and nonwhite candidate to hold the office.

Aboushi appeared with friend, actress, and activist Cynthia Nixon in Nixon’s New York City home during the 2021 Golden Globe Awards. During the televised ceremony, Nixon shared her endorsement for Aboushi’s District Attorney campaign.